Bugging Carter
by Kate McCaye
Summary: Jack O'Neill's favorite hobby.


Bugging Carter  
  
If I were to go to a psychiatrist, he'd probably say I was some sort of weird mix of little kid and hard-ass military dude. And I guess he wouldn't be all that wrong. Sure, I'm around fifty and I still wear cargo pants. I sit on my couch watching "The Simpsons" in my underwear while eating Reese's pieces in unhealthy quantities when we have a weekend on earth with nothing else to do. You have to let go and enjoy life in your downtime when your job is as stressful and dangerous as mine, or you'd go crazy (according to some, that may have already happened to me).   
  
Anyway. Along these lines, as CO of SG1, I have also taken it upon myself to make sure that my team doesn't forget to relax every once in a while. Teal'c is, surprisingly, the easy one. He relaxes all the time on his own with his kel-no-reeming all over the place, and he likes to learn all kinds of new Tau'ri traditions. He'll try almost anything at least once. Daniel's a little bit harder, but since he can only handle about half a beer, when I can actually get him away from his office, he's not that hard to get to chill out. The trouble comes in the form of one blonde haired, blue-eyed Major Sam Carter.   
  
She would gladly move into her lab if General Hammond gave her the go-ahead. Not that she doesn't have an absolutely wonderful sense of humor, personality, laugh... anyway. She just tends to become a little too focused on the work every once in a while. I mean, what we do is important, and truth be told, she's probably the most valuable contributor to the SGC and by extension, the entire planet, but she's not a robot (well there is a robot version of her, but it's not around anymore. Stuck on the Comtrya planet. That's beside the point.) So anyway, it's really hard to get Carter away from her office for more than about an hour at a time, so it took a while to get a strategy figured out for injecting a little fun into her life, but I like to think that after four years, I've got it figured out pretty well.   
  
The thing about Carter is she's so brilliant you've got to keep her on her toes; it's what she likes. Once I figured that out, it got a lot easier. All right. All of that was bull. Well, not really. But it came off sounding much more... altruistic than the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Bugging Carter is FUN. LOTS of fun. And most of the time, I'm pretty sure she enjoys it too.   
  
Of course, sometimes I misjudge things a bit or go too far... case in point. She got a big kick (and I was on the receiving end of a huge grin) when I stuck my face (nose to be specific) under her giant light-up magnefying glass thingy while she was looking at her bug parts. She did NOT, however, find it amusing when, whilst explaining some doohickey or other to me, Daniel, and Teal'c, I surreptitiously aimed it at her chest, and she subsequently spent a good ten minutes describing her new toy to three men who were not paying one bit of attention to the words coming out of her mouth.   
  
Most of the time she enjoys my little antics though, even if she pretends not to. I think. Ah well. She hasn't reported me to Hammond yet, so I take that as a good sign. I like to think I'm pretty good at smoothing things over after I do go too far and actually offend her. Case in point: I called her a nerd one night when the four of us were just chatting around the fire, off-world. She laughed it off but I could tell by the look in her eyes it had stung, and I hadn't meant it too at all. So when we got back to base, I brought this giant box of Nerds, the candy, ya know, to the debriefing, and started snacking down. When General Hammond demanded what the hell I was doing eating candy during a debrief, I shrugged, gave my patented 'innocent grin number two,' which I aimed especially at Carter, and said, "Sorry, sir, I just really like nerds." Hammond had the doc run some extra tests to make sure I wasn't insane, but Carter was staring resolutely at the file in front of her, trying to hide a smile. All better. Stuff like that. Carter's got a lot of patience with all of us, and she doesn't hold a grudge.   
  
Okay, so a lot of the motive behind my constant stream of "bugging," as Daniel calls it, is the fact that I am strictly forbidden from showing anybody one millionth of the amount of... feelings... I have for her, so it's kind of an outlet. As Daniel said one time, "You act like a fifth grader sometimes, Jack. I'm surprised I've never seen you pull her hair or give her a noogie." At which point a noogie from me promptly silenced Danny-boy. So he was right. Big deal. Not like I've got to admit to it. Kid should respect his elders.   
  
Let's see, the list of things I've done to (or for, I could argue) Carter is long and distinguished. (Insert a Top Gun gutter-joke here if you feel so inclined. Great movie.) I like to keep her guessing what's coming next. So, for example, sometimes I raid her various stashes of chocolate she keeps squirreled away in her lab, office, locker, car, pockets, pack... you get the idea. Sometimes I move it around, sometimes I take it. Sometimes, if I'm feeling extra brave, I walk past her eating some of it right in front of her (I am careful to do this only when she is speaking to General Hammond and therefore cannot chase me down the hall and beat me senseless for it.) But more often than not, I refill her stashes for her. Neither of us ever mentions it out loud. It's like it stays special only as long as neither of us acknowledge it. And she can't really get too mad at me for taking it, because I've hidden a lot more than I've smuggled away.   
  
Another ongoing bit between us is me taking the last blue jell-o in the commissary. I have no idea why Carter likes blue jell-o so much more than all the other colors, but she does. It's yet another of her little quirks that she'd probably hit me if she knew how endearing I found it to be. An ancillary benefit to the blue jell-o is that it turns her tongue blue, and I'm positive she doesn't know this, because she carries on entire conversations that are way over my head with a blue tongue, looking politelty puzzled as to why I and her lab techies are having trouble keeping a straight face and keep looking at her mouth. If I know she's on her way and there's only one left, I take it, and we invariably spend the next half hour debating over who's going to eat it. 99% of the time I end up giving in, making it look like a big sacrifice. That one other time I started eating it right in front of her just to see what she'd do. She looked at me like I'd just run over a box of puppies. I promptly slid the remaining portion over to her side of the table. She wouldn't indulge me in my ongoing efforts to hold blue jell-o ransom if I didn't also rescue just as much blue jell-o. She skips a lot of meals or eats them at odd hours when she gets caught up in figuring out some new alien toy, so if I'm in there and I see that there's only one blue jell-o left, I bring it to her. This backfired once when I needed a peace-offering after accidentally invalidating one of her experiments, because there was a surplus of blue jell-o that day. Figuring she wasn't going to be in the commissary that day, I took her one and told her it was the last one. Unfortunately, as soon as I had been given the full-blown Carter grin, the spacemonkey came bouncing in, happily oblivious, with a blue jell-o offering of his own.   
  
Those are just some of the ongoing little things I have going to help lighten her up. Sometimes I plan them out more carefully. I like to vary the level of their overtness. Once I showed up in her lab with a football and tossed it back and forth between my hands until she agreed to come topside with me, Daniel, and Teal'c and throw it around. Rather than risking the destruction of her lab, which she apparently saw as an inevitable conclusion to the presence of both me and a football in said lab, she agreed. I like her to know sometimes that I'm trying to help her relax, that I want to hang out with her (and Teal'c and Daniel too, of course) during down time. Sometimes I like to keep it hidden though, because she would probably think I was nagging or hovering or something.   
  
The thing with Carter is that she knows she's the smartest person around. She also knows I tend to play the brains down. I mean, I can't compete with her in that category anyway, so why try. So sometimes it's fun to throw her for a loop, so to speak. I really, really enjoy seeing her surprised. It takes a lot to surprise Carter; I mean, the woman comes up with the craziest ideas to get us out of certain death situations: how do you surprise somebody whose solution to one certain problem was to "blow up the star?" It's hard. Few others can accomplish it. I am a master.   
  
She's used to me not listening to her during briefings. It doesn't bother her anymore, because she knows I read the bulleted summaries of her report, so I have a very BASIC idea of what she's going to say. And I think she likes that I trust her enough to spec out the missions by herself without calling her on every little detail. She's a genius, she has to have noticed that I pay a lot more attention when Daniel proposes something than when she does. With Daniel, there's always the definite possibility the trip is nothing more than a really expensive field trip. With Carter, if it was her idea, it's going to be pretty cool, and worthwhile. I'm pretty sure she figured that out. I hope she has. So anyway, every once in a while, when she's "prattling on," I can't help but surprise her. Today is going to be the best. I prepared for this one like no other.   
  
The meeting begins just like any other. We all sit down in our usual, if not assigned, seats: Hammond at the far end of the table, me and Carter on one side (I make sure to lean back in my chair and look bored before it even starts) Daniel and Teal'c on the other side. Hammond gives a brief intro for why we're here: Carter's found something from a satellite relay on Pwhatever, and she wants us to take a little trip and check out something really cool. I'm paraphrasing of course. Then Carter gets up and starts doing her scientist thing. The plan is momentarily pushed aside as I can't help but watch in amusement at the look of excitement that keeps building up on her face as she starts talking faster and faster about the wonderful opportunity to witness something called a "naked singularity."   
  
I snort once at the name of it, but her look silences me and I go back to staring at her for a while before I remember the plan. Okay. Here we go.   
  
"So," she says, trying to conceal a smile and continue speaking, "Basically Heisenberg's uncertainty principle will be proven once and for all by what we can record..." I hold up my hand. She stops in surprise.   
  
Ha, didn't think I was paying attention, didja.   
  
I'm sure if I looked around everybody else would be looking at me in surprise as well, but they're not the target of this op.   
  
"Sir?" she prompts.   
  
"Sorry, Carter, just to clarify... does that take into account the photoelectric effect?"   
  
She mouths like a fish for a minute and it takes all the special training I've got not to burst out laughing at the look on her face. She recovers quickly though and says, "Yes, sir, it does... we've got a variety of quanta to aim at the singularity to ensure visibility."   
  
"All right, just checkin," I say, leaning back in my chair again, linking my hands behind my head. She shifts on her feet. Five points for me.   
  
She quickly recovers and starts talking again. But I'm not done. Wait for it... here it comes...   
  
"This is a very difficult question to answer, because it involves an application of the quantum principle to the basic structures of time and space themselves in addition to the particle paths in any given space-time background..."   
  
I put on my look of "hey I've just figured something out" and interrupt her. "Major, can't you come up with a way of doing the sum over histories that includes the particles and the whole fabric of space and time as well if you used imaginary time?" I ask innocently.   
  
Woa. System overload. I wasn't expecting that reaction... oh God, this is bad. She's not looking surprised or confused or anything, she's looking... impressed and sexy as hell. She's giving me the kind of look Daniel makes fun of me for giving her when she's not looking. As he put it once, "You're looking at her like she's about to give you a lap dance."   
  
I'm not sure how long we just stared at each other like that but my brain suddenly decides to remember there are other people in the room as General Hammond barks, "Colonel O'Neill! It is my understanding that this is Major Carter's briefing. Stop interrupting her or you will be asked to leave."   
  
"Yes, sir," I say with a grin aimed at her, leaning back in my seat, trying to regain control of the situation. She hasn't started speaking again, but she's not looking at me like she's about to jump me either. Oh well.   
  
"Gotcha," I mouth.   
  
She narrows her eyes at me for a moment and continues, "Well, sir, I'm not sure how exactly, but Colonel O'Neill seems to have done his homework on this one. That is precisely what I did, but it's still all theoretical, we really need to get on this planet to see if the theory holds out. Sir, if it does, the entire theoretical branch of physics would... cease to be theoretical."   
  
"Very well, Major, you have a go."   
  
"Thank you sir," she says with a great big smile.   
  
Yup. The brainy stuff wins out over my distractions once again. Come on, I can't really compete for her attention with that kind of stuff, can I? Not for long.   
  
Everybody else disperses, Daniel saying something about the commissary. Carter's still collecting all of her papers and folders and things, so we're alone, because I sure as hell can't get out of my chair just yet.   
  
"Sir, was there something else concerning you about the mission?" she asks finally, stacking all of her gathered papers and folders on top of each other and hugging them to her chest as she prepares to leave. She's fixing me with the "polite 2IC" look I know so well, and is either pretending she's over my little stunt earlier or she really is. Sometimes I can't tell with her, but seeing as how she just got the go-ahead for this field-trip of hers, it's probably the latter.   
  
"No, Major, no concerns at all here. Good job. You know, Stephen Hawking couldn't even figure out how to do that sum."   
  
She smiles in surprise and says, "True, but in all fairness, sir, he doesn't exactly have access to all of the classified data we've gathered over the years." She's waiting for me to get up but sorry, it's not going to happen anytime soon.   
  
"Was there anything else, Major?" I ask, hinting that she should just leave me sitting comfortably (or uncomfortably) as I am.   
  
"No, sir, well, not really, just..." She fixes me with that gaze that refuses to leave me for days at a time and asks, "I was just curious... do you actually know what you were saying, or did you just memorize it to interrupt my briefing?"   
  
"Now, Major, you know I can't answer that. Even if I wanted to, as you well know, theoretically, to use your favorite term, both realities are equally as valid." The tiniest flash of the look from before, but more in control now. She was expecting it. "So, in the immortal words of... A.A. Milne... that's for me to know and you to find out," I conclude with a smirk.   
  
She closes her eyes and shakes her head slightly with the look of longsuffering patience that many of my stunts seem to illicit and leaves the room muttering. Okay, so this time I'm not really sure who got who. Whom? Yeah, whom. 


End file.
